Saturday, August 30, 2008

A full sewing day

I actually got up at a decent hour and managed to get some sewing done. I've drafted the armhole facings and attached them; they look good! I'm finally pleased with the armholes; they're the area that I've had the most trouble with on this pattern. I also managed to draft the neck facings and re-draft the collar but I haven't attached them yet.

Of course I'll baste a trial collar on first because I don't have much of that contrast fabric. The collar is basically traced off of the neckline but it's not a direct trace; there are two pivot points on each of the front and back neck (and at the shoulder) where the collar is turned. This means that the collar neckline is shaped a bit differently even though the neck measurements are the same as the dress. This is probably so that the collar will drape properly over the shoulder. Anyways, I made sure that my collar also had those pivot points in approximately the same locations.

The only thing I might have changed on this dress is that the side bust dart is a little high. I would like the point to be about 1/4 or 3/8" lower, although I'm not sure that many other people will notice this. I'm not going to go back and change this now.

The pattern calls for taffeta interfacing and I actually managed to pick some up in a gorgeous blush colour; it is 60" wide and it was 75% off. Yeah, it's polyester, but that's ok. The dress is cotton, after all; it's not like I'm making a couture gown out of rare materials, after all. I usually use fusible interfacing for my projects but it almost always bubbles up after a few washes, even though I pretreat it. So this time, I thought I would go with a sew-in interfacing. I couldn't really find anything else cheap that had the same weight and drape as the taffeta, so I went with the taffeta. If I had silk organza I'd use that but I don't have any (yet).

I'm kind of hoping to finish the dress this weekend. I've pre-washed all my fall fabrics and I'm itching to make stuff with them :)